


I've Got my Demons (and they all look like you)

by Summertime_saddness



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bisexual Male Character, F/M, Kinda experimental writing, M/M, Major Character Injury, Monster World, Post-Apocalypse, Scars, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, The Upside Down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8250376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summertime_saddness/pseuds/Summertime_saddness
Summary: It's been three years since they got Will back. They’d thought that’d be the end of it, that Will was returned, the monster dead, case closed. But the portal was still open and the thing about monsters is that there’s hardly ever just one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story is basically finished, just some editing to be done!
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

Jonathan finds the pack of cigarettes his mother kept under the chair on the back deck, the red and white label already faded yellow from the sun. There’s only one left. He smokes it on the walk to the woods that surround the Bryer home, the gentle inhale/exhale, relaxing the knot that lives somewhere in his chest. He can feel it loosening with every breath, grey white smoke swirling skyward as he walks. 

It’s fall now, at least, he thinks it is. Everything is a little off these days, there are whole chunks of time that Jonathan can’t seem to remember, memories somewhere deep inside himself that he’s lost interest in ever finding again. Everything is grey.

They’d thought that’d be the end of it, that Will was returned, the monster dead, case closed. But the portal was still open and the thing about monsters is that there’s hardly ever just one.

Jonathan’s never been to the Upside Down, but sometimes he thinks it must look a little bit like this: this landscape of dead things and stripped trees, the smell of gasoline and burning rubber, of dead things and decay, always present in the air. He wants to keep walking and never stop. He wants to run away. The once green trees have been stripped of everything but their bark, thinned down to a sickly pale, the wood looked rotted. Still, they provide a small comfort as Jonathan enters their midst, they are a reminder of a what used to be. 

He doesn’t bother trying to stay quiet, kicking up loose bits of dirt and overturning hollow branches from where they’d encrusted into the ground. There’s nothing to scare or even a monster to alert, these woods are just another graveyard.

He’s wearing plaid, a shirt a few sizes too big for him, it’s red and yellow pattern the most colorful thing in this hellscape. He plays with the sleeves that sit just a little far past his writes, the starch long worn out of it. It probably belongs to Hopper. 

The cigarette burns low, and despite the chill, his sandy bangs stick ruthlessly to the sweat beading at his forehead, the salty moisture trickles down his nose. 

He can’t remember how many people they’ve buried out in these woods, they tried to bury all of them, back in the beginning. They’d had funerals with kinds words and crying, there would be food afterward, and strategy meetings on how to fight back, how to win. Now, most of the bodies are burned, hastily, quickly, dead leaves and sticks covering whatever is left besides the ash. Sometimes they can’t burn them. He tries to not think about those bodies. Tries to not think about Nancy’s. The knot has turned into a rock, sitting in his chest, getting colder and colder, spreading out tendrils of ice that he can feel wrapping around his heart. He wants to throw up. But that’d be a waste of the little food they have left.

He’s only a mile out from one of the lookout posts stationed on the path that leads up to the valley. It’s one of the safest places in the district and it’s a small comfort that he knows that’s where Will is. Will, and Mike, Lucas and Dustin. It’s a miracle they are still alive. 

He tries to not think about Nancy. And the sound she made when she’d first been hit, been stabbed.

Jonathan makes a left at the path that would lead him out of the woods, walking a steady line towards where he knows Steve’ll be waiting. Predictably, Steve is already there, leaning against one of the few trees still strong enough to hold any weight, eating an unripe apple. The steady crunch sounding sharp and huge in the silence of the woods. 

Steve looks different. Jonathan knows he does too but there was always something so put together about Steve before, now he just looks wild. Half of Steve’s head is shaved, the hair refusing to grow back. A deep scar running along the side of it, making it’s way down his eye and across his nose. Jonathan can still remember the size of the monster’s claw, yellow tipped and deadly, it’s mouth had been leaking a sickly orange that burned whatever it touched. But Steve was able to keep both nose and eye, and only the scar remained as a sign at how near to death he had been.

Jonathon’s no better, underneath the plaid and undershirt, across his chest and wrapping around his rib-cage are the burns of the same beast’s acidic saliva. He can still feel the way his skin sizzled, the sound like bacon on a too high flame, the smell of his own skin melting away. 

And now here they stood, survivors, brothers in arms, friends. More. 

“Hey Jon,” Steve says, the hint of a smile playing around his mouth. He’s grimmer, they all are, but he still manages to keep a look of a playfulness about him. Like maybe, just maybe, if you look at Steve’s face for a little bit too long you could pretend that the world wasn’t ending. Jonathon kind of loved him for trying. 

Nancy had been like that, in the beginning. Tough, ruthless, but always hopeful, ever hopeful. She believed in the “one day,” one day it’d be over, one day they could leave, one day they would win.

Jonathan tries to not think about the sound she made when the monster’s talon ripped through her side, hooking on to her rib cage, and tugged her down it’s hole. 

“Hey, yourself.” Jonathan says, a small smile of his own shining through. He wipes at his sweaty face, wishing he had another cigarette. Or a cold beer. 

“It’s been pretty quiet,” Steve remarks, gesturing the dead, dying land around them. There’s not even a bird left to lay out a call, nothing but the gentle lilt of the wind against the scraps of bark.

“The patrols up north haven’t seem anything either,” Steve continued, rubbing the side of his bare head with a gentle hand, tracing the bumpy scar. “Their thinking we might have cleared everything that’s up Topside.”

Jonathan nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. This would happen every few months, they’d clear the Top, leaving all the new Monsters to figure out how to get to the Top while the crew scrambled to find a way to close the portals and to stop the monsters from being able to create new ones of their own. 

They hadn’t been successful yet.

“I think it’s almost time.” Jonathan said quietly, keeping his gaze away from Steve, eyes drifting towards the soggy filth of where the river used to be.

Steve’s eyes are intense, bright and sharp in a way they never had been Before. Jonathan sometimes thinks that some of the Monster’s venom had filtered into Steve’s brain, altering his abilities. 

“You know we can’t say goodbye.” Steve said intently, voice soft. 

Jonathan turned sharply towards him, green eyes meeting midnight brown. He wondered if Steve could read minds. 

Jonathan inhaled sharply, running a hand through his scraggly hair. He needed to cut it desperately, anything could become a hazard out on the field.

“I know,” He began, pausing to inhale quickly through his nose, exhaling slower. He needed another cigarette. They all needed another something.

“I know,” He repeated. “And I won’t...I won’t say anything.”

Steve nodded, eyes still too intense, body still too loose for this climate of death and constant vigilance. 

“That means your Mom, Jonathan. And Hopper, and Will.”

At his younger brother’s name Jonathan flinched, turning away from Steve completely. 

“Fuck,” He whispered, turning to lean his sweat sticky forehead against the tree near Steve, his breath coming out in quiet pants. 

When he closed his eyes he could still Will, standing over his bed with green blue iridescent slugs crawling out of his mouth, his nose, crying. He hadn’t told anyone, they’d agreed, him and his mom and Hopper. When things started getting desperate and people needed something to blame they knew they’d turn on Will. And they weren't wrong; the first creatures they had seen had been babies, infant monsters covered in slime, grown from the intensities of an 11 year old boy. 

He’d kept his promise, didn’t tell anyone. But that was Before. 

He’d since told Steve. 

Jonathan felt Steve’s hand grip firmly on his shoulder, grounding him, he could feel the steel warmth of Steve’s palm through his layers of clothing. Could feel the trace of each bone of his finger splayed into his the meant of his shoulder, curving over, fingertips rested gently on his collarbone. 

A lot had changed.

“The plan is still the same,” Jonathon breathed out harshly.

He turned, facing Steve, his back pressed up against the dying tree. Steve’s hand was still rested on his shoulder.

“We get the supplies, we break in, and go into the portal.” 

Steve nodded, a small smile coming back across his mouth.

“And we kill those sons of bitches and close this shit for good.”

Jonathan nodded.

“And we find Nancy’s body.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s the end of the world, Jonathan, who really gives a fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

At night Jonathan could sometimes hears the sounds that the monsters made; deep snarls, squeals, clicking sounds like a bird, the guttural noise like a water bursting through a pipe. They all had different faces, some with no faces at all. Slashes for mouths, bodies tangled like some kind of tortured demon drug up from the depths of hell. Creatures with eyes where their ears should be, humanoid in stature, long tongues that dripped white paint. 

They had tried to categorize them, make some kind list of the ones that might be related, to create some kind of idea of where they came from. But you can’t categorize something that language even fails to describe. They were demons, creatures, monsters.

They take, and they take, and they take.

People, homes, lives, community, hope, joy, color, life. 

Jonathan rarely sleeps anymore, and almost never through the night. But neither does anyone else. 

He doesn’t bother trying too this night. 

He walks out to the shed a little after midnight, the night, like everything else in their world, is silent. The monsters kept at bay for now the silence is loud in celebration. He tugs open the shed door, the old wood groans against the pull, the metal along the side rasping painfully. He shoves his way in, flicking on his flashlight to fill the small area with it’s off yellow light. 

He drops his duffel bag on one of the shelves next the wall where the extra weapons are kept, the sound of the zipper being undone rings loudly in the night silence. The shed smells wet and rotten, like old fruit and decaying things, but Jonathon’s used to the smell now. It’s the scent of most things these days.

Jonathan begins pulling the extra weapons from compartments hanging by the wall: a hatchet, an ice pick made from metal, a hammer, the wooden handle still stained with blood, a pair of leather gloves with nails studded along the palm. He placed them all carefully in the bottom of the bag, the metal and wood rattling gently against each other as they settled. 

“Going somewhere?”

Jonathan startled, nearly dropping the spray can filled with gasoline on the floor. 

Will stood in the doorway of the shed, body illuminated by the moon shining from outside. At 14, he was still so small, arms and legs long skinny things that made his body looked like rubber. His mop of dark brown hair hung jaggedly around his face, his eyes huge against the paleness of skin. He was wearing Jonathan’s old NYU hoodie that Jonathan had found in a thrift store a few towns over. Will didn’t look surprised to see Jonathan standing in the middle of their shed with a bag filled with weapons in a duffel bag. 

Jonathan sighed, setting the spray can gently against the wooden table, letting his hair momentarily cover his face, giving him time to think. He didn’t want to do this, he would be ok just leaving, saying nothing. Goodbyes were terrible. Worthless. 

“Yeah, Will,” He said, face still turned downward. “I’m going on a little trip with Steve, we’re just going to make sure all the monsters are really cleared out of the woods. Shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days.”

He lifted his head up at the last part, forcing a small smile, tried his best to look encouraging. Will just looked blankly back. 

He had never been the same after the Upside Down, his skin never quite regained it’s full color. Now, standing in the halflight, eyes glowing and knowing, Jonathan felt like he might not know his brother at all. But just as quickly as the thought came, it had vanished, because this was Will. For the first time since Nancy, Jonathan suddenly wanted to cry.

Will took a step into the shed, flicking on a flashlight of his own.

“You’re going to Upside Down aren’t you.” He stated flatly, eyes scanning the bag and the open drawers. 

Jonathan sighed again, running a rough hand over his face slowly.

“Will,” He began,

“You know it’s stupid right?” Will interrupted, “You aren’t the first one to try, you know, and you also know how that turned out! What makes you think you can close it, that you can stop them from coming through?”

“We...have a plan, OK?” Jonathan said, voice coming out more like a plea than he meant for it too, “We know what we have to do.”

Will nodded slowly, a pale long finger reaching up to the trace a knob of knotted wood on the table’s surface. 

“I’m not going to stop you.” Will said, quietly, “Or tell.” 

Jonathan released a stream of air, reaching out to pull Will in by his bony shoulders, crushing him to his body.

“Don’t kill me, Jonathan,” Will mumbled, voice muffled, “That’d be a bad way to go.”

Jonathan laughed wetly, pulling slightly to wipe his eyes against the sleeve of his jacket. Will was smiling slightly, brown eyes shining huge.

“I’m going to try to come back, OK Will? I’m going to try to come back and we’re going to end this.”

Will nodded, 

“I know you’ll try, Jonathan.” Will said softly. “I believe in you.” 

Will suddenly looked so small, so young and fragile, the way he did before all of this had begun. Jonathan wanted to wrap him up his arms, cover him with all the layers Jonathan could find, and whisk him far far away from this awful place. 

Instead Jonathon just rests his hand on Will’s shoulder, squeezing gently before throwing in the last gasoline canister in the bag. 

“You’re trying to look for Nancy, too, aren’t you?”

Jonathan forces himself to relax, turning to face Will again.

“I mean, she’s...she’s dead, Will.” Jonathan hopes she is at least, it’d been months, he’d only hoped to bring her body back, to not leave her to rot in that place.

Will’s solemn face suddenly broke out into a small smile.

“Yeah, it’d be kind of awkward trying to explain you and Steve, wouldn’t it?”

“W-what? Will!” Jonathan said, eyes going wide. “What are you talking about?”

Will rolls his eyes, reaching up to pull the bag off of the table and slinging it over his shoulder, the weight causing him to stoop forward.

“It’s the end of the world, Jonathan, who really gives a fuck?”

 

Steve didn’t. Steve with his scarred up face and acid riddled scalp, and eyes that never stopped gleaming. Steve who laughed when he loaded his gun and shot it through the body of whatever monster of the week had cropped up, teeth still intact and sparkling, over sized denim jacket whipping around his slim frame. Steve wasn’t broken by the hellscape, he was remade.

When Jonathan pulled up in front of the meeting spot, an only abandoned tree house a half a mile from the Harrington house, he was reminded of how otherworldly Steve had become. 

Steve was leaning against a half rotted beam, the wood barely supported the weight of the house and Steve’s added body mass. He was wearing his usual denim over a black sweatshirt, the logo half faded across the front. He was tapping his slender fingers to a noiseless tune against his pant leg, black hair moving steadily in the night breeze. The scar along his scalp and face gleamed shiny and violent in the moonlight. He looked strange, deadly. Beautiful.

Jonathon had never felt more fragile and more human.

“Hey, Jon,” Steve said, easy smile on his lips, fingers white and thin still tapping out the soundless beat.

Jonathan tossed his duffel bag near the backpack already stationed by Steve’s feet, the contents rattling in the still night air.

“Hey,” Jonathan said, half a beat too late. He tried to focus his eyes on Steve’s, but it was like looking into a light for too long, every blink revealing an echo of what was.  
“You ready for this?”

Steve scoffed, pushing off the beam of wood and dusting off the back of his jeans.

“I’ve been ready, baby.” Steve turned to face Jonathan, head tilting to the side, the movement only adding to his otherness. Jonathan shivered. He could feel the familiar feeling of sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, he reached up to shove at his bangs. 

“You talked to Will, didn’t you.” Steve said flatly, eyes dark and intense. “I knew you would, so typical Bryer.”

“Look, he guessed OK?” Jonathan said roughly, taking a step forward. “And I just...I couldn’t lie to him OK? He won’t tell, he won’t say anything. We’re good.”

Steve nodded slowly, eyes tracking Jonathan carefully. He closed the meager distance between them, reaching a hand to rest gently on the side of Jonathan’s neck, fingers resting against his pulse point.

“I trust you, OK?” Steve said, “If you say we’re good, than we’re good.”

Jonathan nodded, eyes on Steve. He could could feel every point of contact between them, could feel the bones of Steve’s arm pushing against his skin, could feel the rough pads of Steve’s finger’s pressing into his neck, steadying him. 

He wondered if Steve could feel how fast his heart was racing. 

Steve’s face was intense, dark and sharp in the dim light of the moon. His eyes never left Jonathon’s. 

“What else is it?’ He asked quietly, nearly a whisper.

Jonathan looked away, shoulders shrugging in an attempt to throw off Steve’s hand, but Steve only gripped tighter. 

“Jon,” Steve whispered again, voice low. “What else is there?”

“Will...he said something else too.” Jonathan said quietly, eyes looking somewhere by Steve’s elbow. “He said, ‘How would you and Steve explain that to Nancy.’” 

Steve grinned, teeth all white and vicious in the moonlight.

“I asked him what he um, what he meant.”

“Yeah?” Steve said leaning impossibly closer. Jonathon could feel the warm spurts of Steve’s breath against his cheek and neck. 

“Yeah.” Jonathan whispered. 

“What’d you say to him,” Steve asked. They were sharing breath now, and Jonathan shut his eyes against the impossibleness of Steve’s face, so open, so vicious. 

“I told him that there was...nothing to tell.” 

Steve laughed, something bright and quick. Impossible. Everything about Steve, about this, was impossible.

“Jon,” Steve said, mirth still present in his voice. “Look at me.”

Jonathan slowly opened his eyes staring into the impossible brown of Steve’s. They shone brighter than the moon above them in their dead world, and they were as fathomless and unknowable as the stretch of black sky above them. Jonathan felt like he was falling, the ground swept out from under him, his body as weightless as the forgotten leaves that littered the ground. His heart pounded inside his chest, every beat struggling to pump blood into veins that seemed to be frozen. The scar that ran alongside his ribcage and chest burning aknew, it was the only thing on his that was warm, that reminded him he was still alive. His opened his mouth, to gasp, to scream, to do something to tell Steve that he was dying. 

Everything around them smelled like death, was dead, everything rotten, decayed, colorless. Jonathan remembered Nancy’s sweet smelling hair, her pale, soft skin, the sound she made when had first touched her intimately. He remembered the slugs pouring from his brother’s body, the sound they made as they hit the floor, hissing and squirming. He remembering telling Steve, months later, at their first stake out together, he remembered the first time Steve put his hand on Jonathan's shoulder, grounding him. 

“Steve,” Jonathan gasped out, chest impossibly tight.

“I’ve got you,” Steve murmured, lips brushing against Jonathan’s. “I’ve got you.”

Of course their first kiss would feel more brutal than a monster’s claw.

Jonathan felt electric, his whole body burned from the enormity of Steve Harrington. Jonathan reached up his hands, grabbed at Steve’s face, his shoulders, his hair, anything to pull him closer. 

Steve tasted like lightning, like salt, like the unripe apples he insisted on eating, even when they were too green and too hard. Their teeth knocked together and sharp canines hit soft lips. Steve moaned into the kiss and Jonathan knew that this must be what Steve had felt like, after the creature had torn into his skull: this is what it feels like to die and be reborn. 

It was cold, the night still and harsh. But Jonathan still shrugged out of his jacket, tried to pull off his shirt while still remaining attached to Steve’s mouth.

Steve laughed, pulling away to take off his own jacket, piling his things in a heap on the cold ground. He grabbed Jonathon’s fallen jacket, making a nest of their combined clothing. 

Steve pulled Jonathan down on top of him, long limbs colliding on the pile of their jackets, skin on skin, scars on scars. Their tongues spoke a language against each other that Jonathan didn’t even know that they both knew. 

In the cold deadness of the night, their bodies burned.


End file.
